Rachel Reeves admits she will raise taxes in October budget – UK politics live

A “new approach” to legal migration aimed at boosting the UK workforce’s skills before recruiting abroad will be taken by the incoming government, Yvette Cooper has said.

In a swipe at the previous Conservative government, the Home Secretary said rising levels of legal migration in recent years reflected a “failure over many years to tackle skills shortages and other problems in the UK labour market”.

In a ministerial statement published as MPs left Westminster for the summer, she pointed to a rise in non-EU long-term migration from 277,000 in the year to December 2022 to 423,000 in the year to December 2023.

The number of work visas in the 12 months to March 2024 was, meanwhile, 605,264, or “over three times that of 2019”, she said.

“That reflects a failure over many years to tackle skills shortages and other problems in the UK labour market, meaning too many sectors have remained reliant on international recruitment, instead of being able to source the skills they need here at home,” Ms Cooper said.

Yvette Cooper added: “This is why we are setting out a different approach – one that links migration policy and visa controls to skills and labour market policies – so immigration is not used as an alternative to training or tackling workforce problems here at home.

“This approach will be important to enabling delivery of the government’s broader agenda.”

Under Labour, the Migration Advisory Council – which provides advice to the government on where skills shortages can be filled by migration – will work alongside Skills England and other bodies as part of a new “coherent approach to skills, migration and labour market policy”.

The agencies will also work alongside the devolved governments in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales towards the same end.

Housing minister Matthew Pennycook said cabinet colleagues at the Foreign Office are undertaking a “concerted effort” to reduce tensions after Israel targeted a Hezbollah commander in a strike on a Beirut suburb.

Mr Pennycook told Sky News: “I know our Foreign Office ministers are engaged in a concerted effort to do what the UK can do to reduce tensions in the region. You’re right that they are at a very high level.

“We’ve advised British nationals in Lebanon to leave now on commercial flights and for British nationals not to travel to the region. It’s extremely tense.

“All the effort has to be on de-escalating the situation and getting both parties, the Israelis and the Lebanese, to engage with that US-led process on the diplomatic front and reduce tensions.”

Former minister Lord Hammond has accused Michael Gove of allowing “Nimbys to temporarily own the pitch” on the housing issue.

The ex-chancellor told Sky News this morning: “There has been a lot of politics for sure. There are a lot of Conservative supporters and indeed others, not just Conservatives, who are very much opposed to development in their own backyards.

“Many of them understand the principle that we need to build homes somewhere and somehow this logjam has to be broken.

“And I am afraid that the last communities secretary decided to bow out from that debate and allow the Nimbys to temporarily own the pitch.”

Lord Hammond has warned Labour’s plan to build 1.5million more houses will not be materialised unless the government allows more builders to come to the UK.

The Tory former chancellor said there is “social pressure for new housing” as well as an “urgent economic need to regenerate the housebuilding sector”.

He told Sky News: “But I think it is not just about planning reform. You can’t build houses without builders and if the government thinks relaxing the planning rules while tightening the migration rules is going to get houses built I think they are going to have another thing coming.”

Amid a furious war of words between Rachel Reeves and Jeremy Hunt over the £22bn black hole in Britain’s finances, a clear winner has emerged, says Sean O’Grady:

The chancellor has been tackled by their own side over how many more elderly people will die of cold as a result of stripping 10 million pensioners of their winter fuel payments.

In response to the red-on-red criticism in Parliament, the government frontbench said it understood the “disappointment”, but insisted it was the right, if tough choice, given the state of the public finances inherited from the Tories.

The new administration was also accused of “picking” on pensioners with the move, which it was claimed would wipe out the benefits of the triple lock, which guarantees state payouts rise each year in line with inflation, earnings or by 2.5% – whichever is higher.

Challenging the government, Labour peer Lord Sikka argued the move was “taking away” £300 from pensioners by “a measure that was not in our manifesto”.

He told the upper chamber: “I have received already many messages where pensioners are very, very concerned about this.

“The government could have introduced a taper to lessen the pain to help many pensioners. Would the minister give a commitment that he would have another look at that?”

He also pointed out a document produced by the Treasury “has lots of financial numbers but there is no mention of any human whatsoever”.

Lord Sikka said: “Last year, 5,000 pensioners died because of cold and were unable to afford heating. Has the minister made any estimates of how many more will die because £300 will be taken away from them?”

As Israel launches airstrikes on Lebanon to target Hezbollah, the UK has delayed its decision to ban some arms sales to Israel after it faces legal challenges to define arms exports used for offensive purposes, the Guardian reports.

Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, he added: “We support Israel’s right to defend itself in line with international humanitarian law. They are in a tough neighbourhood threatened by those that want to annihilate it.”

It comes as Israel’s war on Palestine took a major turn after Hamas’ political chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed by Israel in Teheran, Iran.

Diane Abbott has led criticism of Rachel Reeves’s spending plans labelling them “renewed austerity”.

It comes as the chancellor unveiled a raft of brutal cuts to deal with a £22bn black hole in the country’s finances.

But her set of measures to save up on funding has sparked criticism among members of her own party.

The veteran MP for Hackney has accused Ms Reeves of presiding over an era of “renewed austerity”.

Ms Abbott is leading a left-wing backlash over the chancellor’s move to scrap winter fuel allowance payments, cancel transport projects and Boris Johnson’s plan to build more hospitals.

Angela Rayner’s planning “revolution” will see London’s housebuilding target slashed by 20,000 homes, despite a wider push to boost the number of houses being built each year.

The deputy prime minister and housing secretary unveiled a major overhaul of the planning system today, which will see all councils in England given new, mandatory housing targets as part of a plan to deliver 1.5 million more homes in the UK.

She warned that Britain is facing the “most acute housing crisis in living memory”, claiming that the number of new homes is set to drop below 200,000 this year – something Ms Rayner dubbed “unforgivable”.

Our political correspondent Millie Cooke has the full story:

Nigel Farage has said he will not back Rachel Reeves’ plan to scrap winter fuel payments for pensioners labelling the Labour decision “cruel and cynical”.

The MP for Clacton told GB News: “I have to say I think it’s rather a cruel thing to do, and I certainly won’t be voting for it as and when I get the opportunity.

“There were times in the past where maybe the argument was that it wasn’t necessary and it had been given as a bribe. But it’s almost like Labour are saying, ‘well, we don’t care about the pensioners, because they’re not going to vote for us anyway’.

“That money that could have gone to pensioners has gone for massive public sector pay rises, including over 22 per cent for junior doctors. This is a very cynical thing she did.”